Today, BMC announced the general availability of its Innovation Suite for Developers. The Suite of tools is designed to enable businesses to offer services for the digital and cloud era. The APIs and SDKs that power the Suite can be leveraged by process owners and developers alike.

Webhooks offer a far more efficient way to monitor changes to an endpoint than traditional polling. In this recent article on InfoWorld, Mark Geene discusses the technology and highlights three commercial implementations that put it to good use to improve the customer experience.

To provide more options in searching for relevant contacts, Microsoft has decided to transition WorkingWith API users to its new People API. The People API not only provides more robust metadata than the WorkingWith API, the People API includes greater browse/search functionality and ranking system.

Earlier this year, Google requested map data from the Korean government. In response, Korean tech companies Naver and Kakao have increased free limits to their respective maps APIs beyond what Google offers. The government is expected to respond next month but the competition has already started.

Google has introduced a Web Share API developers can use to enable sharing capabilities on sites. The API allows users to control how and where data is shared by enabling websites to call on the host platform’s native sharing capabilities. The API can only be used on websites with a secure origin.

Snapchat recently announced an update to its advertising platform which includes the availability of a new Ads API. The API is a set of tools for allowing important business partners access to real-time bidding on advertising time, and a set of tools to develop the content that will stream.

MapQuest is inviting developers to take its MapQuest Static Map v5 API for a spin while in beta testing. The refreshed API has a handful of new features that should appeal to developers who rely on MapQuest's mapping tools. The beta is being offered for free through the end of 2016.

Microsoft has expanded its business application platform, Flow, to support Custom APIs and three new apps. Microsoft made the announcements at its Ignite 2016 event. As Microsoft continues to build its business application platform, more supported apps and more API connectivity will be essential.

TomTom has added another API to its mapping and navigation solutions portfolio: Traffic Stats API. Traffic Stats collects data from over 450 million connected devices in order to provide historical traffic data. The data collected includes speed, route, travel time, segment, and more.

Facebook launched v2.8 of its Graph API. Highlights include Custom Open Graph and the Marketing API updates. Facebook will deliver more Common Open Graph action types to relieve developers from having to create custom graph actions and objects. Marketing API updates give advertisers more control.

A few months after releasing the Google My Business API v3.0, Google has released v3.1. The release includes many new features including push notifications for new listings and reviews, easier navigation to Google Maps, and more. Additionally, Google mentioned a number of new features soon to come.

Yelp continued its barrage of developer news today. The company's latest announcements include a completely redone developer program and the Yelp Fusion API that will replace Yelp's existing API over time. New API features include more pictures, content caching, autocomplete and more.

Google is opening up Maps to new ride-sharing partners, meaning the search giant just effectively created the first ride-hailing price comparison feature. The surprise here is that Uber, previously the only ride-sharing partner on Google Maps, allowed this.

Geocoding involves converting a description of a physical address into coordinates that represent that location on a map to perform spatial analysis. This tutorial on the Google Maps APIs blog describes the two approaches to geocoding with Google Maps APIs, and when to use them.

Bluetooth beacons offer a range of uses for sending radio signals over the air to connected smartphone applications. In this tutorial, developer Kuba Gretzky explains how he bypassed the beacons in restaurants to collect authorisation keys and earn himself free beer on a points-based app.

CrowdRiff has announced API access to its Visual Influence platform. API access to CrowdRiff features allow users to deliver user-generated photos and associated features to marketing products and campaigns. Features include social media search, calls to action, photo acquisition, and more.

In Microsoft's journey to make Office an open developer platform, the company has taken the next step by making the Excel REST API generally available. Now developers can integrate the business productivity tool with third party services like accounting software, emails, surveys, etc.

Google today said it is putting the Google Places API for iOS 2.0 and the Google Maps SDK for iOS 2.0 into separate CocoaPods. The idea here is to reduce the app size for developers who need Places data, but not Maps data. Google says the change heralds big savings in app binaries.

After continued developer requests, Google has added marker clustering to Google Maps SDK for iOS Utility Library. The feature allows users to populate maps with a large number of markers while keeping the map clean and readable. As zoom levels adjust, markers aggregate and slit out accordingly.

After continued requests for access to more Yelp data, and additional API functionality, Yelp has launched a developer preview of a brand new API. The Yelp API was rebuilt from the ground up. Yelp envisions the new features, data, and architecture will simplify the developer experience.